They were segregated to a corner of the village close to the Greta Shrine and they were considered to be at the bottom of the societal rung, well below the children. In a sharp contrast, the Christianity disregarded the social order of the Umuofia people and imbibed the Osu into the church, shaving off the tangled hair off their heads and treating them like brothers. They were taken from the lower societal position to be very important and rich people in the society and treated as 'all children of God and they must receive these as their brother' (Pg 111) as Mr. Kiaga, a stanch convert, referred to them as being. The white man also disrupted the family pattern and peaceful coexistence that there was before their coming. There before, the word of the father as the head of the family was final unless overruled by the Egwugwu. This is no longer the case in a society where everything is falling apart. Umoye, Okoknwos son, takes the liberty to convert to Christianity even without the consent of the father. This he does even with the knowledge that his father loathes whites and their religion....

Furthermore, he refuses to back off the religion despite the reprimand from his father, indeed he goes ahead to change his name to Isaac, a Christian name and thereafter runs away from home to permanently stay with the Christians. In a way, the Okonkwo's family is falling apart thanks to the white man's indulgence.
In general, the coming of the whites into Umuofia village totally disrupted the cultural trends of the Umuofia people, right from their agriculture and economy, the justice system, the social life and even the family lifestyle. The whites are viewed as ethnocentric and egoistic people who want all the cultures to change towards their own cultures. When things seem like they cannot change, and the fight against change seems to Okonkwo as a fight that he is fighting alone, considering the achievements he has worked hard to get and would not like to lose them to the western ways, he commits suicide and quits the disrupted and corrupt white man's society.

References

Achebe Chinua,(1958). Things Fall Apart. New York: First Anchor Books, 1994.